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0 LORD, let Thy Wrath turn from us: for we 
are but a Few among the Heathen. 



A LETTER 

From 

Major WILLIAM BRADFORD 

To the 

Reverend JOHN COTTON 

Written at Mount Hope on July 21, 1675, 
and containing an Account of the Opera- 
tions leading up to an unsuccessful Attempt 
to Capture Metacom alias King Philip the 
Wampanoag Chieftain. 

Reproduced in Facsimile and Published for the First 
Time from the Original Document preserved in The 
yohn Carter Brown Library for the Members of the 
Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantations assembled in a 
General Court at Providence on December 30, 19 14. 

Jeremiah iv, 7. — The Lion is come up from his Thicket y and the Destroyer is on 
his Way; he has gone forth from his Place to make thy Land desolate; and 
thy Cities shall be laid waste without an Inhabitant. 

Providence: Printed by S.P.C. for the Society of Colonial Wars 
in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations y 19 14. 




£93 

3ir 




HE escape of King Philip from Pocasset 
Neck on the easterly side of the Taunton 
River the last of July, 1675, transformed 
a border foray into a devastating v^ar. 
The chroniclers of the time described the operations 
u^hich led up to the attempt to capture Philip, but they 
neglected to preserve some of the details which v^ould 
help a later generation of readers to understand why 
events happened as they did. A few of these were 
given in a letter written during the campaign, which 
is now reproduced from the original manuscript in the 
John Carter Brown Library. 

This letter was written by Major William Bradford, 
a commander of the Plymouth forces, to his pastor, 
the Reverend John Cotton. Both were New Eng- 
landers of the second generation, each the son of a 
more famous father of the same name. Bradford, born 
at Plymouth in 1624, had been since 1658 an Assist- 
ant in the government of the Colony. His son, the 
third William Bradford, made his home on some of 
the land conquered from Philip's Wampanoags, and be- 
came an active leader of the new settlement of Bristol. 
Cotton was born at Boston in 1 640, and after his gradua- 

[3] 



tion from Harvard in 1657, preached at various places, 
w^ithout any settled charge, until he w^as ordained at 
Plymouth in 1669. The references to Bradford in 
his correspondence show that the two were confidential 
friends. 

Major Bradford probably left Plymouth with the 
soldiers who were dispatched against the Wampanoags 
as soon as the news arrived, on June 20, that some of 
the frontier settlers at Swansea had been killed. This 
force marched to the house of the Reverend John 
Miles, at the bridge over the Warren River which led 
into the country occupied by the hostile natives. There 
the troops sent from Boston joined the Plymouth men 
on June 28, and two days later the combined army 
swept the country as far as Mount Hope. 

Philip, who was known to his own people as Meta- 
com, realized that his followers could not light success- 
fully against this English army, and transported them 
across Mount Hope Bay to a secure retreat on the 
opposite side of the Taunton River. There the Wam- 
panoags were undisturbed for several days. The 
Massachusetts Bay troops were sent to the Narragansett 
country to overawe the natives there, and compel them 
to sign a treaty of neutrality. Meanwhile the Ply- 
mouth soldiers crossed to Rhode Island to dry their 



[4] 



rain-soaked clothes and otherwise refresh themselves. 

Reconnoitering expeditions along the uplands on 
which the city of Fall River is built showed that the 
hostiles were thereabouts in large numbers, anxious to 
fight. When the commanders of the Boston troops 
were notified that the enemy had been located, they 
returned from the other side of Narragansett Bay. 
The Plymouth men rejoined them and the army pro- 
ceeded against the Wampanoag position. Major Brad- 
ford's letter describes the operations of the Plymouth 
forces during the days immediately preceeding and 
following the return of the Boston troops. 

The amplest account of these operations is given in 
the Reverend William Hubbard's "Narrative of the 
Troubles with the Indians in New England," which 
was printed at Boston in 1677. Hubbard states that 
after it was definitely known that Metacom and his 
warriors were at Pocasset and prepared to fight, " Capt. 
Church did not stay long at Road-Island, but hasted 
over to the Mattachuset Forces, and borrowing three 
files of Men of Capt. Henchman with his Lieutenant: 
Mr. Church and he returned again to Pocasset, where 
they had another skirmish with the Enemy, wherein 
some few of them fourteen or fifteen were slain, which 
struck such a terror into Philip, that he betook him- 



[ 5 ] 



self to the Swamps about Pocasset, where he lay hid t 
till the return of the rest of the Forces from the Nar- t 
hagansets, like a wild Boar kept at a Bay by this small pi 
party till more hands came up. i tl 

"Thus were the Plimouth Forces busied, during the o 
time of the Treaty with the Narhagansets, which being tl 
issued as it was. I 

"On Friday July 15. Our Forces Marched for, ii 
and araived at Rehoboth where having no intelligence [ 
of the Enemy nearer then a great Swamp on Poc assets \ 
eighteen miles from Taunton; they marched next day 
twelve miles to an House at Matapoiset (a small Neck i 
of Land in the bottome of Taunton Bay, in the mid- | 
way between Mount-hope and Pocasset Neck) from 
whence they marched for Taunton. July 1 7. whither 
after a tedious March of twenty miles they came in the 
evening, and found the People generally gathered into 
eight Garison Houses : 

"On Munday July 18. they Marched eighteen 
miles before they could reach the Swamp where the 
Enemy was lodged: as soon as ever they came to the 
place, Plimouth Forces being now joyned with them, 
our Souldiers resolutely entred in amongst the Enemies, 
who took the advantage of the thick under-wood, to 
make a shot at them that first entred whereby five were 



[ 6 ] 



killed outright, seven more wounded, some of whose 
wounds proved mortal : After the first shot, the Enemy 
presently retired deeper into the Swamp, deserting 
their Wigwams (about an hundred in all) newly made 
of green Barks, so as they would not burn : in one of 
them they found an old man, who confessed that 
Philip had been lately there : having spent some time 
in searching the Swamp, and tired themselves to no 
purpose, yet it was said one half hour more would have 
at that time utterly subdued Philip and all his power. 
The Commander in chief, (night drawing on apace) 
not thinking it safe to tarry longer in so dangerous a 
place, (where every one was in as much danger of his 
fellows as of his foes, being ready to fire upon every 
Bush they see move (supposing Indians were there) 
ordered a Retreat to be sounded, that they might have 
time to dispose of their dead and wounded men, which 
accordingly was attended : Plimouth Forces who had 
entred in the rear, retreating in the front. It was 
judged that the Enemy being by this means brought 
into a Pound, it would be no hard matter to deal with 
them, and that it would be a needless charge to keep so 
many Companies of Souldiers together to wait upon 
such an inconsiderable Enemy, now almost as good as 
taken: whereupon most of the Companies belonging 

[ 7 ] 



to the Massachusets were drawn off, only Capt. Hench- 
man with an hundred Foot being left there, together 
with Plimouth Forces, to attend the Enemies motion, 
being judged sufficient for that end. . . . 

" But to return to king Philip,w\io was now lodged 
in the great swampe upon Pocasset Neck, of seven miles 
long : Capt. Henchman and the Plimouth Forces kept 
a diligent eye upon the enemy, but were not willing to 
run into the mire and dirt after them in a dark Swamp 
being taught by late experience how dangerous it is 
to fight in such dismal Woods, when their eyes were 
muffled with the leaves, and their heads pinnioned 
with the thick boughs of the trees, as their feet were 
continually shackled with the roots spreading every 
way in those boggy Woods. It is ill fighting with a 
wilde Beast in his own den. They resolved therefore 
to starve them out of the Swamp, where they know full 
well they could not long subsist: To that end they 
began to build a Fort, as it were to beleaguer the 
enemy, and prevent his escape out of the place, where 
they thought they had him fast enough. Philip in the 
mean time was not ignorant of what was doing with- 
out, and was ready therein to read his own doome, so as 
if he tarryed much longer there, he knew he should 
fall into their hands from whom he could expect no 

[ 8 ] 



mercy : The case being therefore desperate, he re- 
solved with an hundred or two of his best fighting 
men to make an escape by the Water, all passages by 
the land being sufficiently guarded by the English 
Forces. The Swampe where they were lodged be- 
ing not far from an arm of the Sea, coming up to 
Taunton^ they taking the advantage of low tide, either 
waded over one night in the end of July, or else 
wafted themselves over upon small Rafts of timber 
very early before break of day, by which meanes the 
greatest part of his Company escaped away into the 
woods, leading into the Nipmuck Country, altogether 
unknown to the English Forces, that lay encamped on 
the other side of the Swamp. About an hundred or 
more of the women and Children, which were like 
to be rather burdensome then serviceable were left 
behind, who soon after resigned up themselves to the 
mercy of the English. Philips escape thus from 
Pocasset could not long be concealed after the day 
appeared, there being much champaign Land through 
which he was to pass, so as being discovered to 
some of Rehoboth, the Inhabitants presently followed 
him, — slew about thirty of them, took much plunder 
from them, without any considerable losse to the 
English. ... 

[ 9 ] 



" But what the reason was why Philip was followed 
no further, it is better to suspend, then too critically to 
enquire. This is now the third time when a good 
opportunity of suppressing the Rebellion of the Indians, 
was put into the hands of the English ; but time and 
chance hapneth to all men, so that the most likely 
meanes are often frustrated of their desired end. — But 
by this means Philip escaped away to the Westward, 
kindling the flame of Warre in all the Western planta- 
tions of the Massachusets Colony wherever he came, so 
that by this fatal accident, the fire that was in a likely 
way to be extinguished, as soon almost as it began, 
did on the sudden break out through the whole Juris- 
diction of the Massachusets, both Eastward and West- 
ward, endangering also the neighbour Colony of 
Connecticut, which hath also suffered somewhat by the 
fury of this Flame, though not considerable to what 
the other Colonyes have undergone." 



Major Bradford's 
Letter 



I 




{K^iC -yyr^ fM^ -rt^ ^ 





Ill For the Revent John Cotton 
att Plimoth Deliver these 

in^ Sir 

After my Best respects p'sented to y*" selfe & M" Cot- 
ton this is to Certify of my health, (Blessed be god) 
though j may say wonderfully p'served by especiall proui- 
dence, we railed forth from roade jland the last weke 
with our one peopell on the maine as far as Cokset 
& att o^ returne we found the tracke of the enimj we 
follow it to a great Swampe entered it but they oute 
rane us, onlj fond thire habitations wch we burned* 
and tow old men whome we dispaced. tow dayes 
after we marched againe and found them hid in an 
hidious swame, we entred had a hard dispute with 
them they shot on all sides att us, we followd home 
to them beate them of thire place, fired thire wig- 
wams slew aboute seven of them, they wounded foure 
of ours and one of our owne men lost by accidentall 
prouidence by one of o^ owne peopell, here we found 
thire lugage gote divers pots & kittles of thires, then 
we returned to mount hope to refresh our selfs met 
with the bay forces come from Naraganset, then to- 
gether the last munday marched up into the cuntry, 
after halfe a days march met with the enimj, who 
charged upon our Forelorne, kiled tow of ours we 
followed on and in a great swampe we found thire 
body we entred in, the bay forces first, the enmj seing 
it, betooke them selfs to trees & thickets fired thicke 

[IS] 



I 



upon us we drafe them from thire first station, but | 
sudine the hand of god seemed to be against us we | 
had many slaine and wounded, fife slaine and six | 
wounded & some of them j feare mortall & of these jj 
most were Capt Mosles, men & tow of Capt Hinch- j 
mams men so we retreated to the water side with o^^ 
wounded men we toke an old jndian in the swame, 
who told us that philipe & the squa shachem were 
both thire with thire men 

Sir this is the substance of things that hath happenned 
and what the lord calls us furder to do we are weight- 
ing upon hime, desiring to lay o'' selfs low before 
hime who will exalt us in his due time, j am a fraid 
we ow much in o^ owne strenght, 

thirefore th e of prouidence upon us, we are 

now gowing to make another garison on pocasset side 
towards Roade jland to keepe the enmj from thire 
corne & the watter side w^^ Capt Hinchman hath 
undertaken, we & the Bay have written home for 
furder aduice, for we are at a stand, the good lord 
direct us, all our plimoth men are well, j pray re- 
member me to all my frids especallj to my deare deare 
wife & childen to home j shall not have now time to 
write pase by my spelling for j write in great hast yo^ 
yo^ saruant & loving frind 

Will' Bradford 

from mount hope 
21 July 75 



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